Checking the heavenly ‘bank account of karma’: cognitive metaphors for karma in Western perception and early Theravāda Buddhism

Abstract

To visualize the accumulation of good and bad karma in terms of credit or debt in a bank account is a common feature in works on Buddhism and other Indian traditions. Applying conceptual metaphor theory, this article tracks the metaphorical framework of understanding karma as a kind of ‘heavenly bank account’ back to its roots in early European scholarship. Based on a comparison with metaphors for karma to be found in Pāli texts of the Theravāda tradition, namely, the analogies of ripening, inheritance, and the dark/bright dichotomy, this article argues that the ‘bank-account’ imagery differs in significant – if subtle – respects from these emic metaphors, displaying certain Judeo-Christian preconceptions of moral bookkeeping, sin, and salvation.

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